{"id":8253,"date":"2016-05-31T07:30:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T14:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=8253"},"modified":"2018-11-11T21:40:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T05:40:21","slug":"make-home-car-camping-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/camp\/make-home-car-camping-with-friends","title":{"rendered":"Make Home: Car Camping with Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a century ago John Muir, a man who spent countless nights under the stars, who helped found the Sierra Club and who is often called the father of our National Park System<\/a>, wrote about going to the mountains to find home.<\/p>\n

This has always resonated with me. It recently got me thinking: What is home? Is it that plush pillow-top mattress I just bought? Or is it that mid-century sofa that I plop down on every night in order to eat dinner and watch election news on my flat-screen\u00a0TV?\u00a0I\u2019m not so sure about that.<\/p>\n

What makes me feel at home is drinking my morning coffee with the sun shining on my face. Wearing\u00a0spandex pants and a hoodie all day long. Never having to look in a mirror and being completely comfortable in my own skin. Cooking a tasty meal outdoors and enjoying it with good company. Being able to completely check out.\u00a0No overflowing inbox. No social media. No chores. No work. That to me is\u00a0what home should feel like. A\u00a0sanctuary.<\/p>\n

So maybe home isn\u2019t just a man-made structure filled with furniture. Maybe it\u2019s more of a feeling or a state of mind.<\/p>\n

As a blogger and freelance writer, I work from my apartment, and home doesn\u2019t always feel like the refuge that it should. To really feel at home, I\u00a0sometimes need to get away, and my go-to solution is to hop\u00a0in\u00a0the car and find a nice spot to camp far away from the city and cell service.<\/p>\n

Recently, I took a trip with a group of eight friends down to the San Rafael Swell, a\u00a0remote spot in\u00a0the Southern Utah desert surrounded by rocky red cliffs and a dark sky full of shooting stars.\u00a0We brought our tents, sleeping bags, camp chairs, tunes, some chili fixings, a guitar, a glow-in-the-dark bocce set,\u00a0and plenty of firewood to keep the party going well into the night. We told\u00a0stories, laughed until our rosy cheeks hurt, and fell\u00a0asleep\u00a0listening to the wind whistle through the trees.<\/p>\n

While it was just a short weekend away, coming\u00a0back to my apartment in Salt Lake City I felt like I left my real home down in the desert. Turns out that John Muir fella was on to something.<\/p>\n

Life really is better by the campfire.<\/p>\n

Kristen’s Car Camping\u00a0Favorites<\/h4>\n